And the sun rose brightly, 2-channel video, 2023

The video work is based on reading the novel My Soul in Exile (1922) by Armenian author Zabel Yessayan about an artist who returns to Istanbul before the outbreak of World War I. Within this political context she explores such questions as the experience of feeling like an exile in one’s own land, the position of a woman artist and her fears and failures, reflections about her art and its perception by the society, the relations between the artist and the society, political situation and the possibilities of doing art, the feelings of alienation and isolation. The overlaying of two different historical times, fiction and reality, as well as body and text in the video creates both parallels and ruptures.